Snowjob wrote:Are we going to do another one again next year? This is always a fun exercise

It is also an educational exercise:

Vanguard's Total Market Index Fund Admiral (VTSAX) currently has a Year-to-Date return of 15.70%. Only 7 hedge funds in the contest did better; 26 hedge funds did worse.

Past performance does not guarantee future performance.

Happy Holidays
Taylor

That is interesting..isn't 7/33 better than the percentage of mutual funds that beat the market?. But am I right in assuming the "players" were locked in to two long and two short positions, and they were not allowed to trade all year? Not that people would do better if they had more flexibility, but they might, and it would be interesting to see.....

protagonist wrote:That is interesting..isn't 7/33 better than the percentage of mutual funds that beat the market?. But am I right in assuming the "players" were locked in to two long and two short positions, and they were not allowed to trade all year? Not that people would do better if they had more flexibility, but they might, and it would be interesting to see.....

If this and the "guess the year-end index" contests were held by WSJ, Fox News or Money Magazine, the winner surely would have nightly major national media appearances for at least the coming year, and probably have billions of dollars in assets flowing his/her way from those wanting to jump on the bandwagon.

protagonist wrote:If this and the "guess the year-end index" contests were held by WSJ, Fox News or Money Magazine, the winner surely would have nightly major national media appearances for at least the coming year, and probably have billions of dollars in assets flowing his/her way from those wanting to jump on the bandwagon.

camper wrote:
By the way your longs are Mastercard and Radioshack. Shorts are Target and Pulte.

(smiling....)

By the way, will you let us in on the secret to your success? How did you pick them? I need a new system. By investing in low-cost index funds all these years I can't even beat the market.

I chose one of the best performing from 2011 which was Mastercard as a reversion to the mean pick.
I had a feeling home builders would do well so I picked Pulte.
I drive by a Radioshack everyday on my way to work and there is never anyone shopping there.
I chose Target just because I like to shop there.
The Pulte and Radioshack picks is what won it. The others weren't that great.

I'm taking all portfolios up through Fred's NIWID Fund. kenyan's fund was posted 40 minutes after the market opened, and with APAGF up 20% from the Dec 31 close as I write, IMHO it's an unacceptable leg up on the field.

Norbert Schlenker wrote:I'm taking all portfolios up through Fred's NIWID Fund. kenyan's fund was posted 40 minutes after the market opened, and with APAGF up 20% from the Dec 31 close as I write, IMHO it's an unacceptable leg up on the field.

Fair enough. I just picked names off a list I read of the Russell 3000's best and worst performers from 2012; I didn't check any return for today. I also read the rules from 2012 posted early in the thread, which stated the cutoff as 9 am on January 3. Obviously, that doesn't make complete sense for 2013. Best of luck.

Norbert Schlenker wrote:kenyan, I didn't mean to post anything that sounded like an accusation of impropriety and I apologize if you took it that way. It just wouldn't be fair to the other participants in my opinion.

49 entries plus the (inappropriate but dead easy) benchmark this year. That's up 50% from last year, so there's clearly a bull market in this subject among Bogleheads.

Best name is deemed to be madpunster's Reversion to the Meme, which gets a 1% advantage on all opening prices.

I suspect that's not your intention in asking though. You probably want those tables updated with closing prices as of today. I can do that pretty easily but there will be some significant holes because of the cumulative effects of takeovers and delistings.

Norbert Schlenker wrote:The posted portfolios have been recorded. I've done an initial run of the software, the result of which is here. Please verify your own portfolio and post a message if you see a problem.

There is one problem portfolio, grok87's. As far as I can tell SDRL is not in the Russell 3000.

New entries may be made, or existing entries modified, up until the market opens tomorrow morning.

I'll announce the winner of the 1% bonus for the best name, and adjust opening prices accordingly, sometime tomorrow.

oops, sorry.
please replace SDRL with Exelon (EXC).
thanks

"...people always live for ever when there is any annuity to be paid them"- Jane Austen

I haven't followed stocks or bought a copy of the WSJ since I switched to indexing in '99.

Now I will have to buy a WSJ subscription and a pile of financial software so that I can follow my portfolio. I will have no more time for my friends and family. My sax playing will surely suffer. Damn.

(btw, are those expenses tax-deductible if used exclusively to follow hypothetical portfolios?)

I suspect that's not your intention in asking though. You probably want those tables updated with closing prices as of today. I can do that pretty easily but there will be some significant holes because of the cumulative effects of takeovers and delistings.

...

Nope, just putting together some literature to attract more capital =P

Norbert Schlenker wrote:I'm taking all portfolios up through Fred's NIWID Fund. kenyan's fund was posted 40 minutes after the market opened, and with APAGF up 20% from the Dec 31 close as I write, IMHO it's an unacceptable leg up on the field.

Fair enough. I just picked names off a list I read of the Russell 3000's best and worst performers from 2012; I didn't check any return for today. I also read the rules from 2012 posted early in the thread, which stated the cutoff as 9 am on January 3. Obviously, that doesn't make complete sense for 2013. Best of luck.

Looks like I can just follow wshang's portfolio anyhow, as he did the same thing I did. The only exception is that I dumped KITD for EDMC, as the former had become a penny stock and I didn't know if it was going to stay in the index.

Shorting Netflix was disastrous, lol. I went from first place last night to middle of the road. The Black Hole Capital Fund was crushing the market but now its sucking all the investors money. Black Hole Capital Fund will stay the course and continue shorting NFLX, ignoring this "bubble."

I'm busy Friday and won't be able to post but on 1/25/13 the Black Hole Capital Fund will end the short position on BKS taking whatever the market close will be(freezing it).